Molecularly imprinted polymer-high performance liquid chromatography for the determination of tetracycline drugs in animal derived foods

•Synthesis of three single-template molecular imprinted polymers for tetracyclines.•Optimization of the templates, the monomers and the template/monomer ratios.•Optimization of the molecular imprinted polymer-solid phase extraction column.•Determination of four tetracyclines in three kinds of animal derived foods.

In this study, a molecularly imprinted polymer solid phase extraction method combining high performance liquid chromatography was developed to determine the residues of tetracycline drugs in animal derived foods. The polymer was synthesized with chlortetracycline as template molecule, methacrylic acid as functional monomer at template/monomer ratio of 1:4. The prepared solid phase extraction column was able to capture four tetracyclines simultaneously with high adsorption capacities (3560-4700 ng) and high recoveries (>87%), and was able to be reused for at least thirty times. The limits of detection were in a range of 20-40 ng/g, and the recoveries from fortified blank samples (milk, egg and pork) were in a range of 74%-93%. Furthermore, the polymer-based column achieved better purification effect than three commercial solid phase extraction columns. This is the first study reporting the use of chlortetracycline based molecularly imprinted polymer for determination of tetracyclines in animal derived foods.